Public lecture: Rituals in combatant-to-civilian transformation

Wars destroy infrastructure, livelihoods, and social relations. How can members of armed groups and community members trust each other after war? Com2Civ answers this question by focusing on rituals. It examines the psychological legacies of armed groups' wartime rituals and the effect of post-conflict rituals on trust and cooperation between ex-combatants and community members.

Com2Civ is a European Research Council Starting Grant project (2026–2030) led by Júlia Palik at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Norway. Drawing on anthropology, cognitive, evolutionary, and political science, Com2Civ develops a theoretical framework according which wartime ritual exposure creates durable psychological attachment to the former armed group, which under certain circumstances can negatively influence ex-combatants' willingness to trust in and cooperate with community members.

This potentially negative effect of wartime rituals can be moderated by post-demobilization community rituals, particularly doctrinal ones, which can serve as self- and community-directed signals that reduce ostracism, rebuild trust and cooperation between ex-combatants and civilians. We empirically test this framework through pre-registered life-history interviews, cross-sectional surveys, embedded vignette experiments, and the social cartography method with former Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) combatants in the Philippines and former FARC-EP combatants in Colombia.

Com2Civ will provide ecologically valid systematic evidence about the legacies of collective rituals and how participation in novel rituals influences inter-group relations, advancing current debates across several disciplines and informing evidence-based reintegration programming.